It's All Very Practical
by binnibeans
Summary: All Arthur did was ask for a little help-not an entire lecture.  Then again, teacher Alfred is rather cute, even if he is just going on about rocks and minerals.


**A/N:** Written for the US/UK lj comm's Sweethearts' Week!

Day 06 Prompt: Earth, Sky, Sea, and Space

* * *

If there was one thing Arthur Kirkland didn't appreciate, it was Alfred F. Jones finding a reason to laugh at him for something. Especially for something like this.

Arthur Kirkland was certainly no idiot. He was at the top of his class and the student body president. It was just … he was having issues with this class. It wasn't _difficult_, really, it was just that he found no practical application for it in his own, personal life. Alfred, who goofed off but still managed to get good grades, was doing spectacularly well in the class.

So, naturally, Arthur approached Alfred with a proposition of staying after class to help him study and Alfred had found it decidedly amusing.

"_Forget it!_" Arthur had said, turning away. He'd been stopped by Alfred grabbing his hand, grinning.

"_Sorry, sorry! I'll help you out after classes get out._" He'd kissed the back of Arthur's hand, making the president's blood leak into his face. "_There's no baseball practice today, anyway._"

So now Alfred was trying to explain the chemical compositions of the igneous minerals before them on the table.

"Well…. The Mafic composition is pretty easy. Magnesium, iron, and calcium. Cuz you take the symbol of 'magnesium', 'Ma', and that gives you the 'ma' of 'mafic'. The iron's a bit tricky, but the 'f' from 'Fe' for iron combined with the 'i' of 'iron' gives you the 'fi', and the ending 'c' stands for 'calcium'. Magnesium, iron, and calcium! Mafic! I suppose you could also just use the whole 'magnesium' and 'ferric' definition but it's not as fun."

Arthur sighed. "Yes, Alfred, I'm aware of the chemical compositions of the minerals. It's the blasted rocks I'm having issues with!" He couldn't deny it, though: Alfred was rather adorable in his continuous explanation. Had he even taken a breath in that explanation?

"Oh, well still. You still have to know which minerals are mafic, intermediate, felsic, or ultramafic. Otherwise you won't be able to tell what kind of rock it is. Well, I guess you could, like obsidian. Can't really miss obsidian. Obsidian's felsic, by the way, and vitreous. Are you all right with the textures? Coarse, porphyritic, fine, vesicular, vitr—"

"Yes, I'm fine with the textures—Alfred! Just help me with this practice test!"

"You said you wanted help studying! It's usually me asking you for help; let me help you."

Arthur sighed. Why did he have to be so charming? "I'm surprised you're actually as good at this as you are but I suppose when you have rocks for—"

"And I'm surprised you're not as good at this as I am, even though you're way smart."

Arthur bit his tongue, staring at the rocks in front of him and trying to deliberate if Alfred's comment was an insult or a compliment "A-anyway! What kind of rock is this?" he asked, picking up one that … reminded him particularly of a dinosaur's hide.

Alfred took a brief glance at it and then immediately wrote something down. "Granite."

"…But that one," Arthur began, pointing at another rock that looked nothing like the one in his hand. "Is granite. How—"

"Cuz. Look. All of that orange, salmon-colored mineral is Potassium Feldspar; it's an alkali metal and so it's sometimes called alkali feldspar, or orthoclase. The mineral mixed in with it, those stripes, is quartz. K-Feld and quartz are just one of the contributing combinations that make granite. (At least, in being the two most abundant minerals in the rock.) Most of the rocks are granite that we're identifying."

"You're not going to double-check?" Arthur asked incredulously.

Alfred shrugged and grabbed Arthur's mock test to see what he'd managed to fill out and what he hadn't. "Don't need to." Arthur was suddenly very apprehensive—he barely had anything filled out on it, save for a few simple things and here Alfred was, 258% confident in his answer. He rested his cheek upon the palm of his hand.

"'K-Feld'?" he asked. "A pet name for your mineral?"

"Potassium Feldspar. 'K' is the atomic symbol. Comes from the Latin _kalium_." Alfred looked up, grinning slyly. "Jealous?" he asked.

_You might look up the etymology for the names of other things you like; like myself._ Arthur smiled, despite his thoughts. "Of a rock? I should hardly bring myself to believe so."

"It's not a rock, it's—"

"A mineral, yes, I know. It's hard and it's in the ground; what's the difference?"

"Well for one thing minerals—"

"It was a rhetorical question!"

"You got laccolith and batholith messed up," Alfred announced, brandishing Arthur's mock test. "It's a laccolith when the covering host rock above the pluton is still intact. When the host rock has gone away, it's a batholith."

Arthur frowned, making a mental note to switch them. "Of course! I was just … trying to make sure you remembered!"

Alfred grinned, looking over. "You're cute when you're trying to play something off." Arthur stammered, ready return on the tip of his tongue before Alfred continued on. "…You also have the crystallization messed up for the course textured rocks. Olivine needs the highest temperate to remain as magma, so it'll crystallize first. Then the Calcium Feldspar—"

A sigh escaped Arthur as he listened to Alfred babble on. Arthur didn't have a superiority complex with Alfred and their academic strengths; he really didn't. He'd just become so used to being the one for Alfred to depend on when he needed help. To him, his integrity and pride have been kicked down a few notches. What would happen if Alfred didn't know something for this class and Arthur couldn't help him? He didn't think Alfred was stupid—he _did_ stupid things sometimes—and he was rather impressive with how he was going on about this. Alfred was doing well in the class, enjoyed it the most of all of their classes, and had been excited to help Arthur out…. He supposed there was an definite charm about it all.

"So that's why granite is like, the most common coarse igneous rock everywhere but it will eventually weather away and then it'll be diorite's turn."

Arthur nodded as if he'd actually listened—a pang of guilt hit him hard. He just went on telling himself that it was all right since he'd ended up gently fawning Alfred's prowess in the subject. Alfred apparently caught the stare he'd been directed.

"Ya need me to repeat somethin' for ya?"

Arthur shook his head this time. "N-no, it's fine." He grabbed his test packet, scribbling answers in as Alfred began talking about the ultramafic composition of peridotite. Arthur had to grin—Alfred was rather cute while going on about something he was enthused with. Arthur reached his hand out to grab Alfred's and then leaned towards him to press a grinning kiss to his cheek.

Alfred turned and smiled. "That was random. Not that I mind, a'course."

"You're going to make the rose quartz in that bin jealous with how pink your face just got."

"Well you've come close to giving the hematite a run for its money with how red your face gets."

"That's bordering on insulting, you git."

Alfred's glasses slipped down his nose just a bit and his eyes widened just a bit. "N-no, I didn't mean it like that! I just—hematite's red, and you blush a lot and I guess the shade of hematite doesn't really work but—! I'm sorry…."

Arthur grinned and shook his head. "I'm jostling you, Alfred, relax." He grabbed Alfred's hand again and continued to write a few things down on his practice test. "What say you and I wrap this up and study something … a little more practical?"

"We do have that chemistry exam next week…."

Alfred went on with a few of the things he needed to brush up on for that test as Arthur simply shook his head and gave in but just a moment later, Alfred's arm found its way around Arthur's waist, as did a that knowing curve on his lips.

-END-


End file.
